Good leaders need a positive agenda, not just an agenda of dealing with crisis.

I think that, too many times, business has been seen as acting in its narrow self-interest rather than, essentially, contributing more broadly to society. I think a lot of that is unintentional; I don't think that many managers are deliberately trying to be unethical or are not trying to be sensitive to social needs.

I teach in the medical school, the School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Business School. And it's the best perch... because most of my work crosses boundaries.

If your goal is anything but profitability - if it's to be big, or to grow fast, or to become a technology leader - you'll hit problems.

The underlying principles of strategy are enduring, regardless of technology or the pace of change.

The best CEOs I know are teachers, and at the core of what they teach is strategy.

Health care historically has been a very siloed field that's organized around medical specialties - urology, cardiac surgery, and so forth - and around the supply of these specialty services. The patient is the ping-pong ball that moves from service to service.

Sometimes in order for change to be made in a positive fashion, we must force ourselves to look unblinkingly at painful realities and reevaluate.

Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.

Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

'Therefore' is a word the poet must not know.

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

The color of truth is gray.

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

I'm not sure what the future holds but I do know that I'm going to be positive and not wake up feeling desperate. As my dad said 'Nic, it is what it is, it's not what it should have been, not what it could have been, it is what it is.'

You've just got to have a sense of respect for the person you have children with. Anger doesn't help anybody. Ultimately you have to say forgiveness is important, and honoring what you had together is important. But it's easy to say and harder to do.

When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness.

I think I would be very sad if I wasn't able to have a baby.

I have a different approach. I don't file lawsuits because I really don't care.

It's a very brave thing to fall in love. You have to be willing to trust somebody else with your whole being, and that's very difficult, really difficult and very brave.

Stay out of the sun, because it is the worst thing in terms of aging. I'm very medical. I come from a medical family.

My parents thought it was nice to develop my imagination, but they never seriously thought that anything would ever come of it. They said that I couldn't be an actress because I would be taller than all my leading men, so I thought I would be a writer instead.

I was walking around legally blind. Now I have 20-20 vision. I can't believe I spent so many years blurry, but I think that coincides with how I was feeling. Now I notice if people are watching me, but I also smile right back if someone waves, which helps.

Computers absolutely changed my life. Before I had a computer, I had never written one thing. Not one thing. I'm a very bad speller and I was embarrassed by that. When I would type, the little mistakes would make me nutty, and I would never edit anything.

My love of computers, besides being practical, is very direct and visceral. I love the way things look on the screen.

Whereas you have someone like Houdini, who works really, really hard to get really, really famous, and then has actual intellectual ideas that he puts into the culture that stay there.

Bacon is so good by itself that to put it in any other food is an admission of failure. You're basically saying, 'I can't make this other food taste good, so I'll throw in bacon.'

A joke is a way to say, 'I'm going to do something funny now. If I don't get a laugh at the end, I'm a failure.'

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion.

Everyone's goals are the same with very small differences. I mean, the goal of a socialist and the goal of a libertarian are exactly the same. The goals are happiness and security and freedom, and you balance those.

Religion cannot and should not be replaced by atheism. Religion needs to go away and not be replaced by anything. Atheism is not a religion. It's the absence of religion, and that's a wonderful thing.

Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.

The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all.

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral, self-righteous, bullying laziness.

There is no reason for the government to limit political speech.

The secret truth of 'Celebrity Apprentice' is that it isn't very hard... 'Celebrity Apprentice' is easy like junior high is easy. All the arithmetic, the creative writing and the history are super simple, but like junior high, you do that easy work surrounded by people who are full-tilt, hormone-raging bug nutty.

My body really, really wanted to reproduce when I was 15. It took a lot of civilization, socialization, willpower and some emulsion polymerization technology for me not to reproduce at 15.

I'm a hardcore libertarian - I want everything legal - but I also believe that you have the right to free association.

Counterintuitive actions prove we can trust real knowledge and do the opposite of what we feel makes sense.

I'm totally against straight marriage - even though I'm married. I don't think heterosexual marriage is any of the government's business.

Once you have somebody that is telling you, 'We are interpreting God for you,' it seems like you either agree or you don't. You either say, like Martin Luther, 'I'm going to have a direct relationship with the word of God,' or I'm going to go through a conduit of God on Earth,' which would be the Pope.

If you like the stuff I do, my chances of liking you go up.

I'm always fascinated by the use of the first-person plural talking about sports.